Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1887-06-01

the flowers of spring, as well as those
who survive them, were at the time
Fort Sumpter was fired upon by
reDels, mostly boys or quite young
men. They knew nothing of war or
of u soldiers life, but they as do the
boys and young men of to-day, loved
their country and willingly sacrificed
glowing hopes for the future and
joyfully left home, school, workshop
and field to show to Southern traitors
that the young men of the North
could and would suspend all their
own plans and purposes which were
as dear to them as are plans and
hopes to the young men of to-day,
that they might go TO the Sunny
South, and by forcible arguments
teach the misguided Southrons that
the union of states was indissollll.
The institution of this Memorial day,
with its attendant ceremonies, was in
no wise intended as means of per-
petuating the animOsitics incident to
civil war, for the preservation of the
Union saved, requires that they be
buried and that over them too shall
bloom the Springtime flowers of the
perpetual peace which we trust has
resulted, from the strife which made
the services of this day appropriate.
Fancy for moment that the Re-
bellion had been delayed until the
present time and that the able bodied
men OF this community and of every
other in the North should suddenly
drop all their occupations of the
present, and plans for the future,
varied as they are, and unite in one
purpose to save the honor of our
country and whip treason into SUBJ
lection;
In the sundering offamily ties there
would be mutual sympathy; In the
march to the front, there would be
reciprocal interchange of emotions,
each having left his dear ones, each
knowing they were tearfully bemoan-
ing the sad circumstances which thus
shoulc sgRder such ties, and yet
periodically striving to bravely en-
dure the sacrifice and with awe try
ing to turn their thought from the
terrible possibilities of the future.
Then when they should reach the
Southern soil, and the miasmatic at
mosphere, where treason could thrive,
and the thrilling 'long ROLL" whose
import only soldier knows, should
call them into battle line and shout
der to shoulder, they should march
with steady unfaltering tread Unto
the jaws of death, into the gates of
hell" and in the pause which precedes
the death dealing clamor Of battle,
they should think of home, of friends,
| of each other and of death, does it not
occur to you that the oneness of pur-
pose, the similarity of their circum-
stances and the certainty of de ath to
many, would beget sympathe TIC re-
gard one for the other? Then, when
the demons of war should be UNI
loosed, and amidst the lannon's roar,
the musket's rattle, the shrek of the
| shell and the clash of saber, the
| shoulders which touched should fall
| apart and the onward march of the
unscathed should leave the ground
strewn with dead and dying comrades
who at home where neighbors, the
hearts of whose loved ones would
soon bleed, as only war can bleed the
heart, think you not this regard
would become intensified. Then in
the progress of the struggle, if thous-
ands should be slain and thousands
should by worse fate suffer the hOr-
rors of rebel prison pens and for years
the scale of victory should be so even.
ly balanced that God only could know
the result, but that finally the right
should prevail, and the boys should
come home bronzed and SCARED and
few in numbers can you not imagine
that the memories of their fallen
comrades would be lasting, and that
between the living mystic tie would
exist, stronger than any which can
be formed by ceremonies less inn
pressive than the shedding of human
blood and the mutual sharing of dan
gers and sacrifices incident to such a
war as we should have?.
Well, the members the Grand
Army of the Republic were the boys
and able bodied men of 1861 to 1865.
They have passed through all and
more than I have limited at. They
came to their homes at the close OF
the war and their interests became
diversified, but through all the years
that have passed, they have been uni
ted in one thought, that of loving
memory, ofthe boys by whose side
| they marched, who were accepted as
the sufficient sacrifice for which all
both living and dead were offered.
And this thought and memory have
been manifested each year by simple
offering of natures beautiful flowers,
placed upon the graves of our fallen
comrades, not by the general public,
but by the hands of those who bore
musket and sabre by the side of these
comrades as an expression of frater-
nal love, which differs in kind from
all other and which only such cir
cumstanccs could generate. This
annual demonstration is not an os-
tentatious display of the fact that we
were union soldiers of the Rebellion,
Tor we feel sure that under like cir
cnmstances, the boys aid young men
of to-day would do as we did and if
they should not, we would. Our ranks
are growing thinner. The soldiers of